THE PINE APPLE. 43 



clean the leaves, he washes with a sponge ; and, in 

 extreme cases, uses Miller's mode. 



Fruit produced. The object of all his directions 

 is, " to have fruit large, good, and early, in a right 

 season; viz. from the middle of June to the middle 

 of September, but no later ; for the rays of the 

 sun, at that time, have not strength enough to give 

 them that poignancy of smell and taste that they 

 ought to have." P. 134. " Cut fruit when their 

 smell is strongest and most poignant ; if too ripe, 

 they soon turn insipidly sweet, and have no more 

 taste than an orange. Cut them about ten o'clock 

 in the forenoon, with about four inches of stalk to 

 them. When the fruit is to be sent to a distance, 

 cut a day or more before they are ripe, with a 

 larger portion of stalk to them, and wrap them 

 very close in paper, to preserve them from the air ; 

 otherwise their flavour will escape." P. 132, 



SECT. IV. 



Culture of the Pine Apple, by John Giles, at Letuisham, 

 in Kent, 1767. 



THIS author, who was gardener to Lady Boyd, 

 and afterwards foreman in the Lewisham nursery, 

 says, he writes after many years' practice and ob- 

 servation ; and that his treatise will be found " of 

 more real advantage to a young unexperienced 

 gardener, than his giving a premium of five or 

 ten guineas to a mercenary old one (who perhaps 

 might have had some practice, with a trifling de- 



